Monday, September 27, 2010

Hello, my name is Lydia, and I'm a beadaholic...

I've gone and done it again. I had a little money to spare this month and where did it go? Right back into my hopeless addiction to art and craft supplies! Wish me luck this Thursday at Farmer's Market, because the only way I'm gonna make it until my next check is if I make a killing selling plastic bracelets and sculpey beads. To make matters worse, my car won't start now. At first we thought it was the battery, but the battery's good, so I'm gonna need the money I spent on those silly alphabet beads and elastic cords to get it fixed, or I'm going to be depending on the hubby taxi service for a while until I get my new car.

Farmer's Market last week was mostly a bust. Because of the weather, not many customers showed up, and so many vendors packed up and left when it started to sprinkle that the manager decided to just go ahead and shut the market down for the day. That being said, for as brief as we were there, there was a LOT of interest in my bracelets! I sold a handful of bracelets and my owl pendant in about half an hour, so if this week fairs better in regards to weather and traffic, I see no reason why I couldn't make some decent money this week.

As if I wasn't keeping busy enough, I have volunteered/been drafted to be the publicist for my little town's event committee. So, in addition to Zazzle, Etsy, special commissions, helping my dad with the garden, and keeping the house together, I will be designing fliers, newspaper and radio ads, and helping find other ways to get the word out about our events. I'm not sure how this happened--I don't even really like this town!

As you may recall, last week my hackles were up about the local attitude towards dog ownership. Just a few hours after I posted that blog entry, I had another...incident. My neighbor's dog, Star, is a menace. She's known to chase people down the street, nip at children on bicycles, act like she's going to attack people in their own yards, and harass cats, and her owners have been warned repeatedly to keep her confined to their property, which they have done only half-heartedly (or assedly, as the case may be.) She was in my yard again Monday night, and when I went out to chase her off, a puppy ran up to me, frantic as though she'd been looking for me for days and looking starved. Star ran away, and the puppy stayed, so I took her in, gave her some food, and tried to take her to the shelter the next day only to learn that they are full to capacity. Now "Penny" is staying at my parents' house until the shelter has room for her, and I'm trying to work with her to get her calmed down enough to be adoptable and fed up enough to not look like a bag of furry bones. Meanwhile Star keeps getting out at night. Four nights in a row, I've had to chase her out of my yard, and she was loose again this afternoon until the local animal control officer rounded her up and put her back in her yard where she belongs. I am an animal lover and all, but my patience is wearing thin. Her owners best hope I never catch their dog while she's in my yard, because they will not get her back. To make things even more entertaining, guess who I've heard "Penny" belongs to? Yup, my favorite neighbors!

I'm a very easy person to get along with, especially as far as neighbors go. I keep to myself and don't pester people to live by my rules, but when someone's irresponsible behavior leads to the suffering of animals and people, that's where I get cross. I don't care if my neighbors have dogs, or if they get loose once in a while. Things happen and I understand that, but the frequency of the "escapes" is ridiculous, and their dog is too hazardous to be allowed to just run loose like this. She believes the whole neighborhood is her territory, and will come up to people in their own yards and act like she's going to attack them. To make matters worse, Penny is clearly neglected, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out Star and their other dog are in poor health as well. Why do people get more dogs when they can't even take care of the ones they've got? *sigh*

Well, I must get back to work. I have fliers to design and beads to craft. Until next time, avid readers!